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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The votes are finally in and beer bloggers can start planning for next year's 2012 Beer Bloggers Conference. Four cities battled for the rights to host the 3rd US beer blogging convention, but in the end only one could win. In 2012, the Beer Bloggers Conference is heading to Indianapolis, Indiana. The event will be held during the summer on July 13, 14 and 15, 2012.

Indy won out over 3 other worthy cities: Saint Louis, MO - Asheville, NC and Austin, TX. The Indianapolis area is home to several craft breweries including Sun King Brewing which took home 8 medals this year from the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). Not only did Indianapolis win but Chicago is getting some of the spotlight as well.

Chicago was also designated as a pre-event city that will host an excursion to the Goose Island brewpub on Thursday, July 12th for a dinner and tour followed by a blogger-led brewpub tour in Chicago. Then the next morning on Friday, Goose Island will provide a bus and shuttle attendees to a 2nd yet-to-be-named brewpub near Chicago and then shuttle folks down I-65 to Indianapolis later that day to get to the main conference.
Details of the conference can be found on the official Beer Bloggers Conference web site.

Fermentedly Challenged's Quest

Most people don't know that I grew up just around the southern tip of Lake Michigan not far from Chicago in southwest Michigan and spent many days of my youth around the Chicago area. I even went to college in northern Indiana. I will be on a personal quest to attend the 2012 #BBC12 as it is as close to my old hometown (St. Joe, MI) and alma mater (Valparaiso University) as it's ever going to get.

I've got relatives in the general area and would love to use this conference as another reason to go back to the Midwest. I can hang out with fellow beer bloggers and visit my home town all in the same trip. Not a bad deal!

For those not able to fly directly into Indianapolis, I might also suggest either flying into Cincinnati and driving 100 miles to Indy or flying into South Bend, Indiana and driving a couple hours south. South Bend is also very close to Chicago. I'll probably fly into South Bend and rent a car. I'll then be able to hit Chicago, southwest Michigan (and it's sandy beaches along Lake Michigan) and Indy all from there.

I missed out on the last two Beer Blogger Conferences in Boulder, CO and Portland, OR so it's about time I get to one of these. I really want to meet a lot of my fellow beer bloggers and take in a good portion of what the local breweries have to offer. While driving around Chicago in Summer is always an adventure (constant road construction), once you get into the middle section of Indiana it's wide open country.